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Bent keen on Villa return

The former England striker spent the second half of the season on loan with the Rams, scoring 10 league goals as they just missed out on the Championship play-offs.

He will become a free agent in the summer and, asked whether he could see himself playing for Villa again, Bent said: “Who knows? It is a fantastic football club, I would be lying if I said it wouldn’t be nice to go back.

“But at the same time I have had a great time at Derby, they are firmly in my thoughts too, so I will go away and have a think in the summer.

“Everyone wants to play in the Premier League, it’s the best league in the world, but if not then Derby in the Championship would be a good option.

“It’s a case of going somewhere where I’m going to play. I have had a good time at Derby, playing week-in, week-out, scoring a few goals and finding form again.”

When Bent joined in January, it looked as though the Rams would be competing for a top-two finish in the Championship.

But they failed to even the make play-offs after winning just two of their last 13 games and slipping down to eighth on the final day.

“For whatever reason, we couldn’t live with the expectations,” said Bent. “We would go into games we should be winning, score four goals away from home and only get a point. Any game where you score four goals away from home you should take all three but it didn’t pan out that way.

“As a team we didn’t perform as well as we were at one stage and we let ourselves down, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

“We always kept thinking next game we will definitely win, but then we had two wins in 13 and in any league that’s not good enough.”

Asked whether speculation that manager Steve McClaren could leave for Newcastle had affected the side, Bent said: “He is a great manager and I am sure if he did leave it would be a big loss to Derby, but we can’t use that as an excuse that he has been linked with Newcastle because all great managers get linked with top jobs. We just didn’t perform as well as we should have done.”